Arbour, the leader of the upcoming conference in Marrakech, Morocco, where the pact is set to be adopted by most UN member countries, said Sunday that some of the most oft-voiced criticisms of the pact are unfounded.

“It creates no right to migrate. It places no imposition on states… It is not legally binding,” she told reporters on Sunday.

The Montreal-born Arbour, who served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Canada between 1999 and 2004, said she expected the pact to “stand the test of time,” even though the U.S., Australia, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Latvia and the Dominican Republic have pulled out.

“This is not a Global compact #ForMigration, but for safe, orderly and regular migration. This is an effort to do better together, to look at the decades ahead of us, and collaborate on the wide range of issues pertaining to international migration,” she wrote.